Our confidence...is not in the competence of our own knowing, but in the faithfulness and reliability of the one who is known.

The gospel is not just the illustration (even the best illustration) of an idea. It is the story of actions by which the human situation is irreversibly changed.

The missionary calling has sometimes been interpreted as a calling to stem this fearful cataract of souls going to eternal perdition. But I do not find this in the center of the New Testament representation of the missionary calling.

I am neither an optimist nor a pessimist. Jesus Christ is risen from the dead.

Congregational life wherein each member has his opportunity to contribute to the life of the whole body, those gifts with which the Spirit endows him, is as much of the essence of the Church as are ministry and sacraments.

To make the improving of our own character our central aim is hardly the highest kind of goodness. True goodness forgets itself and goes out to do the right thing for no other reason than that it is right.

The victory of the Church over the power which was embodied in the Roman imperial system was not won by seizing the levers of power: it was won when the victims knelt down in the Colosseum and prayed in the name of Jesus for the Emperor.